


A cat is not a pest

by Melime



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cats, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A clandestine cat is causing damage around the base, and Daniel must find him before Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A cat is not a pest

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Um gato não é uma praga](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701895) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf). 



> My 100th fic posted here, yay! (well, counting translations and all, but let me celebrate)

Jack got in without knocking. Daniel was so used to it that he didn’t even need to raise his eyes from the translation he was doing to know it was him. The older waited a moment to see if his presence would be recognized, and when Daniel made no attempt to stop his work, he went to the bookshelf across the table and leaned against it.

 

"I was in a very interesting meeting with General Hammond." He commented casually.

 

"Really?" He asked without stopping the work, barely paying any attention.

 

"Apparently we have a pest problem. One single pest to be exact. You would not know anything about it?"

 

"I didn’t notice anything."

 

"Someone left a cat loose on the base."

 

Daniel stopped with the pen midair. "A cat isn’t exactly what I would call a pest."

 

"It is if it has destroyed ten million dollars in scientific research."

 

"It can’t be that much."

 

"This is only the budget of the destroyed equipment, there were also samples eaten. Carter is furious."

 

"Well, I don’t know anything about it. Nothing here was destroyed."

 

"Really?" Jack asked, nodding towards a chair that had been scratched until the lining was exposed.

 

Daniel looked at him and thought for a moment. "It was always like this."

 

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? And you wouldn’t happen to have anything to say about the fact that the security cameras show you entering the base three days ago with a suspicious box."

 

Daniel frowned. "The ‘suspicious box’ was just for carrying some books to study the ruins that the SG-3 found in their last mission."

 

"And your books often need holes to breathe?"

 

"Uhm, yes, err, it’s to prevent mold."

 

"Prevent mold?" Jack asked crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow again.

 

"It’s always good to air these ancient books, mold is a big problem with them. So it's good to avoid moisture and keep them fresh, because you can’t leave them in the sun as you would to kill mold in newer books. The sun bleaches the pages, then it’s extremely difficult to kill the mold after it starts. Not to mention dangerous, did you know poorly maintained old books may contain bacteria that causes blindness?"

 

"I see." He said in a tone that clearly indicated that knew Daniel was lying. "It's good that you don’t know anything about it, you would be upset if he knew what the general ordered done with it."

 

"What are you going to do?"

 

"The order is to shoot as soon as we see it, just in case."

 

Daniel jumped up. "What? You can’t just kill Alek-cat, you can’t just kill the cat! This is cruel and unnecessary..."

 

"Alek?"

 

Daniel paused, trying to find an excuse. "This is cat in Russian, you interrupted me in the middle of a translation, my brain is a little confused."

 

"Daniel, you know I learned Russian? It’s an interesting story actually, it was when I was..."

 

"Czech. I meant Czech. Yeah, that works. The temple that the SG-3 has found written in a Slavic language."

 

"Oh really? Because yesterday you told me that you thought the base of that language had the same origin as Sanskrit."

 

Daniel cursed the fact that Jack never seemed to be paying attention to the information that passed him, but he absorbed much more than it seemed. "Jack, I need to work and I said I don’t know anything about the cat. So if you can go out and leave me alone..."

 

"You know, I bet that the general’s order has to do with the fact that we don’t know its origin. If we knew where the cat came from and we were sure that it isn’t a threat, maybe it could be captured and returned to its owner. And if that owner was a person providing various services to the SGC, I'm sure we could negotiate so that there was no consequence to him, of course. Mistakes happen, even stupid mistakes like dropping an animal loose in a secret base."

 

Jack was giving him a way out, but he didn’t want to give in if he could help. He would have to at least try to find the cat before Jack. "If I have any information I’ll look for you, but for now I really have to work."

 

Jack sighed. He had imagined that Daniel wouldn’t make things easier. "Okay, I'll be around."

 

With that he went, leaving behind a panicked Daniel.

 

The first thought that went through his mind, perhaps a bit irrational, was that not necessarily it needed to be the same cat, but in a split second he realized that the chances of two cats being illegally in the base at the same time were astronomical. Not for the first time, he regretted having promised he would find a home for the cat of his neighbor who had just died.

 

The first thing to do was find out if Aleksander was indeed missing. He wasn’t careless to the point of leaving a cat loose on the base, but he was also too allergic to leave him locked in his office. So, he decided that one of the artifact deposits near his office was the perfect choice. It was large enough that he could move and play smoothly, and close enough that Daniel could go to check on him without some absurd excuse.

 

He peered down the hall before leaving his office. Jack wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The last thing he needed was his CO around while he was trying to fix this mess, not that he thought of Jack as his commander, or at least he would never admit it.

 

"And what do we have here?"

 

Jack's voice made him scared enough to instinctively close the door he that had just opened.

 

"A deposit of the archeology and anthropology department."

 

Jack rolled his eyes. "And what are you doing here?"

 

"I don’t know if you know this, but I work here."

 

"Here, in this deposit? Gee, one would imagine that a guy would get an office after saving the world a couple times."

 

"I need to get something."

 

Jack nodded. "Go ahead."

 

If the cat was really there, he would be handing him to Jack, and would have to admit what he had done, but giving up now would be very suspicious. He opened the door again, hoping for the best. No cat jumped over him as the door opened, which was a good sign. He tried to look around quietly, without finding any sign of the cat. Or rather a very clear sign that he had been there.

 

Daniel bent down to check the ashes on the ground. The broken urn had been brought for study, it was proof that a seemingly uninhabited planet had had at some point a civilization that cremated their dead. And now it had been used as a litter box for the cat that broke it.

 

"Apparently Carter isn’t the only one who loss something here." Jack said, looking around.

 

Daniel frowned. "I can still date the ashes and try to restore the urn to read the inscriptions, but this is much worse than some equipment, it’s irreplaceable."

 

Jack raised an eyebrow. "So now you are also against the cat?"

 

Daniel stood up. "I need to call someone to collect the ashes." He ran away as fast as he could. The chances of Aleksander still being in that deposit were minimal, then he had to find him on the base before Jack, and find a way out of there with him.

 

\-----

 

"I do not think that is wise, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c stated, without looking at Daniel, who was on his shoulders.

 

"It will only take a minute, I can see him here. Pshi, here kitty, kitty. I need to go higher.” Daniel started to rise on Teal'c's shoulders, entering the vent, but still supported by his colleague.

 

Teal'c raised an eyebrow in a way that meant 'how did I let myself be dragged into this situation?'. Daniel showed the best of his ability as an ambassador and that he had an inexplicable talent to convince people from other planets, because Teal'c still wasn’t entirely sure how he was persuaded to do so.

 

"Daniel Jackson, I would advise you to get down from the vent."

 

"In a second, I almost caught..." Daniel was coming down with the cat in his arms when he saw Jack, standing with arms crossed in front of Teal'c.

 

"Now what do we have here...."

 

"Teal'c, you are supposed to be on guard!"

 

"And in your brilliant plan, what should he do when he saw me? Toss you into the vent and run?"

 

Daniel was about to answer when he remembered that he was still holding a very unhappy cat and balancing on Teal'c's shoulders, so he decided to save what little remained of his dignity and get down.

 

"What would you say if I told you I can explain?"

 

"Ever heard the expression 'when you are in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging'? Daniel, you have fifteen minutes to find a way to take this animal off the base or I'll drag you both to the general's office."

 

This was the moment that Daniel’s allergies decided to make his life even worse, and his sneezing made Aleksander be scared, jump from his lap and run. Daniel was about to run after him when Sam showed up around the corridor with a very calm cat purring in her lap.

 

"Someone lost a cat?"

 

"Sam! You are my salvation, how about adopting a cat?" Daniel began excited. "Wait a minute...." He turned to Jack. "Sam had a cat on the base! Why could she keep a cat here and I can’t?"

 

"Because Carter wouldn’t let him loose to break property of the United States government. Not to mention that it was here for less than a day before being sent to another planet."

 

Daniel looked even more outraged by the explanation, but was cut off by Sam. "I can take him home, sure you won’t want to stay with him? He’s so sweet."

 

"Allergies, I can’t get near him."

 

"Another reason why Carter could have pets, she’s not a genius seemingly dumb enough to try to keep an animal while being unable to get near him."

 

Daniel resisted the urge to shoot Jack, mainly because he wasn’t with his gun at the time. "He was my neighbor’s! I found her almost dead at the elevator and she made me promise to find a home for him." That was his spectacular lack of luck, he had entered the elevator at the exact wrong time and gotten this problem.

 

"The one that always made cookies when we went to visit you?" Jack sounded legitimately upset with the news, those were great cookies.

 

For a moment, Daniel forgot his anger. "Yes, she had a heart attack."

 

"Sir, aren’t we diverting ourselves from the most pressing issue?" Sam asked.

 

"Oh yeah, the cat. Carter, if you want to stay with it, get it out of the base. You can get the rest of the day off. Teal'c, I don’t know how you were persuaded to participate in this, but I'm not about to explain this involvement to the general, because it makes our team look ridiculous. Daniel, I should give you a disciplinary action for that, but I will leave you only with the knowledge that because of what you did that vase was destroyed. Yeah, I guess that settles it."

 

"Mortuary urn, Jack, not a vase."

 

Jack waved a dismissing hand at what he said. Daniel really didn’t know how to be silent.

 

"Daniel, if I were you, I would go back to my office office and hope no one else noticed that I decided to use Teal'c as a ladder to get a cat I couldn’t even hold for a minute."

 

Daniel looked betrayed at Sam, who had laughed Jack’s statement. Then he turned to Teal'c, he might seem stoic to those who didn’t know him well enough, but Daniel knew that he also was against him. Finally, he decided to cut his losses and leave. "His name is Aleksander, not that he is obedient enough to answer. And Sam? Just... take good care of him."

**Author's Note:**

> Please, don't take this story seriously. I started writing when I found out that my great-aunt's cat, that was staying with me, that been poisoned along with some other pets around the neighborhood and passed away. He was missing for a couple of days (and my other cat is still missing), and I was devastated when I heard. When I was little, I used to like imagining that when my pets passed they would go to a fictional character, so I decided to write this to see if it would make me feel better. It's weird, but it helped a bit. The ending is a bit abrupt because I had left it in progress for a long time, but in the spirit of April Showers 2015 I'm trying to finish all my WIPs. Oh, and I'm well aware that this ended up getting really OOC, later I'll post something more serious to compensate.


End file.
